Night Shift

The first King book of 2023 is finished and unfortunately it was just an ok read for me. If you didn't know I have been reading a Stephen King book every month with a group on Instagram for 2+ years now so at this point I have read a lot of his books. He's my most read author but he's not a favorite author of mine. His books are hit or miss for me and there are quite a bit that fall in the middle like this one.

This is a collection of 20 short stories. Some worked for me and some just didn't. Some were too short and ridiculous but there were some that gave me exactly what I want/need for a short story to work for me. A lot of these felt like a young King. By young I don't really mean age wise I mean like it felt like he wrote these when he first started writing. I hope that makes sense. They just didn't feel like the King writing I've come to know over the years. 

I do have to mention there were some problematic things in here as well. There was a story that mentioned hand controls (which if you didn't know hand controls are used by people who can't use there legs to drive a car using pedals.) I myself use hand controls because I am a double amputee. I loved this inclusion but what I didn't love was how it was insinuated that he wasn't a whole man because he had to use a wheelchair for legs. There were a couple different statements that irked me the wrong way when it comes to people who are handicapped but that is by no means the only problematic things. King pretty much always includes racism which is always a topic of discussion in our group when we talk about his books. It would be one thing if these types of things were challenged in the story but they never are and they are never needed for the plot. 

Overall I thought this was an ok read. I'm glad I've read it but it's easily forgettable and I most likely will never read it again. There are some classics in here though like Children of the Corn and Jerusalem's Lot.